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Wind roars through the open pass in the hills, setting winter-crisped grasses to rattling mournfully. Few pines are even brave enough to raise their stunted heads, and the bare boulders tumbled down the steep-sided valley impede any easy path. In places, tiny waterfalls plunge to join the silvery creek below, proof of recent rains. 'Tis an inhospitable place at the edge of the Cat Coit Celidon, the primeval woodland most definitely full of fae and less so princesses now that fey Sir Agravaine has taken his leave.
The verdant dandy descending the cliffside simply seems to vanish, perhaps going a little further than intended thanks to Taliesin's shove. The bard has done away with a rival! Agravaine will have a mildly more difficult time in armour negotiating the slope, whereas Viviane rolls her eyes. Very mature of her.
"This is not turning back. I tell you, there is nothing ahead for you," she adds stress in a high, piping voice still rounded with you. "Disband, Aegis of Caerleon. Return to your homes and your adventures."
*
Maximus is definitely not going down there until there's a very good reason to do it. "My Lady! Why are you there on the cliff side?" That seems like a solid question to get out of the way!
*
"Aa-ah…!" There's Tywyll. She's appeared in a shadow as she always does but this one is rather closer to the edge of a cliff than she might have intended, positioned beneath an outcropping thaforms a sort of natural cave. So for a moment Tywyll is flailing as if she might find herself tumbling backwad into the open world. Both of her arms spread she takes a quarter step backward and then the shadow extends behind her, narrowly keepign the girl form simply tumbling after the Green Knight from the side of the chasm. Or wherever it is he actually went to.
Tywyll takes a deep breath, straightening to her full height as she turns. She was here for a reason… It was, ah… "What do you mean, turn back?" Tywyll emerges from her outcropping and begins to climb down toward Viviane, nimbly moving across the rocks."Nothing ahead of us? What has happened to change the nature of our task? Do the dead sleep again…?" She can talk AND climb. Very talented. Like a billy goat.
*
Gareth, of course, has an uncanny sense of balance, and should have little trouble with the gorge, himself. "At least no water this time," he says to himself. "Or flour. Or crossbows." He'll take up the last spot, letting the others go ahead, so as to help them if one gets stuck at some point. He doesn't speak to Viviane at this point. There's others who are better at that.
*
Excellent question on the Knight's part and Taliesin intends to have it answered. The rocks beneath his feet shift for uncertain weight placement, but he seems incredibly unperturbed. After all, he does have a scarlet-cloth shepherd's hood with an attitude against falling to one's death.
Some dust kicks up as he continues somewhat of a controlled slide down towards a larger boulder and then winces. Ow. That impact jarred his instep.
The Pencerdd squints through the dust towards Vivaine and then blinks hard once or twice. Is there grit in his eyes…or…wait. His voice is low, lacking amusement even as he seems to slowly tense throughout his body. "Who enables your presence? Answer me truthfully or your caster will find that sympathetic magics lack such a touch in my anger."
To his Sight, the young woman isn't — she's a projection!
*
Seated on a boulder, Viviane's knees are tucked near her chest under her samite robe. Her veil flutters over her long mahogany braids, and she huffs a breath. "No one ever listens to the wisdom of the young." Scrubbing her face with her sleeve has the same effect as a much older woman sniffing in a harumph. "I tell you that your task is done."
Shooing them with a little wiggle of her hand hopefully hurries them along. "Off you go. No shame in it, no harm either. With any luck no one will even notice. I'm sure if you turn around you'll pop back through the woods and be gone 'ere you know it."
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 2
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 2
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 19
*
Agravaine, your Maximus is showing. He puts on his helm and then starts heading down the cliff, picking his way quickly, carefully, and oddly incredibly adeptly. "The sliver…the shard. I can feel it. Its down, its down with the river. Down, I say, to follow the trail. You especially, Bard. As servant to the King, I need you by my side."
*
Nyx is climbing down still, looking up at the Knights arrayed overhead. "Down further?" She asks, still nimbly picking her way across the stone, "Well, Lady Viviane. I suppose we must accept your advice and head home. It is a load off of my mind, ruly, to hear this is dealt with. I am surprised. Do you know how it was done?" Regardless of her words Nyx is headed for the river and the trail. That might not be obvious currently.
*
Down Gareth goes, picking his way carefully, his gauntlets removed adn tucked into his belt for better grip. He feels like he should take off his boots, but there are limits. "I suppose we should at that," he echoes the girl. "I, for one, look forward to being warm and dry agian. And eating my fill of something hot. I have to say that I am disappointed in the quality of fare here."
*
Sir Gareth most usually is a nimble knight, light on his feet, mindful of where he places them. Would that he actually looked down to the whereabouts of his boot whilst picking his way down the slope. About three body-lengths past the others, said boot slips out of his belt and tangles up under his feet, and in the meantime, tangles him up. Treacherous earth gives way, a chunk of soil breaking off and skidding down the slope. Alas, he cannot surf it all the way down, negotiating a distance before losing his footing and tumbling all the way!
*
Honestly, this projection is not long for the world, but…the Master Bardd manages to keep his tenuous balance and glance over. What in the seven hells. Not a minute back, that Knight was mincing along the edge of the cliff! And oh look, Sir Gareth and Lady Tywyll! The Spymistress speaks cleverly and Taliesin's snarl takes on the leanings of a grin. Ah, how the actions run counter to the words.
Good point, noble band — time to ditch this falsehood and move on. After all, as the blue-doubleted man turns his head and narrows his eyes towards magnetic north, he too can feel the draw of the missing slivers. What truly keeps him from yanking on the nosehairs of the one who cast this clever distraction in inherent respect for the Bright Lady herself. He doesn't like holding back the blow, evidenced by the lingering knife-like glare he gives the false Vivaine, but…with lithe, long-limbed adjustments, he's hot on the others' heels…with a side comment for Agravaine in the mix.
"When you become King, you let me know and then we'll discuss this whole — GARETH!" The whites of the Pencerdd's eyes flash and his reaction is knee-jerk, quicksilvered for the speed of thought: he attempts to throw a Gate before the tumbling Knight's path and allow instead a plop to the riverbank far below.
*
While others are falling, Agravaine seems, against all odds with his armor, to be extremely adept at climbing down a cliff. Gareth falling is a surprise. One he can't do anything about though, watching through his helm with wide eyes as Taliesin tries to catch him with a gate. "Dragon." He quips. "If he lives, there's a dragon down there."
*
Viviane isn't the likely sort to interrupt. She sits where she is and sighs at the state of all the adults in the world.
*
"…Damn it! AH!" The rock Tywyll just grasped pulls away from the cliff. She has just long enough to curse and try to shift her weight to stay standing before she goes tumbling from the rock face and rolling down it, bouncing like a rag doll along the side of the hill. She curses up a storm as she goes as well. So much for the mystique of fair Lady Tywyll ferch Rhys.
*
Okay, next time, he takes off the damned boots and dignity be damned, decides Gareth as he slips. Arms flail briefly trying to grab at something, anything to arrest his fall. "Dammit," he says quietly when the soil gives way beneath him and sends him sliding at first, and then ass over teakettle in a horrible cacophany of metal ringing and clanging. But then a Gate opens in front of him. As much as he hates those things, he'd almost rather keep falling, but no, he falls into it, getting spat out on the ground below, tumbling and then coming up to his feet instantly. For just a moment he seems to stand there as if it had been his plan all along.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 95
*
With his heart in his throat and arm oustretched at risk of falling himself down the risky ravine, he can rest easy for all of one moment before the cursing of the lovely Lady Tywyll fills the air to the other side of his perch.
"Oh seven hells!" With a quick switch of hands and grimace, Taliesin attempts yet another Gate, this one projected in the Spymistress's tumbling path down the steep cliffside.
*
The bottom of the ravine is strewn in boulders and quite marshy. Lichens and flattened thickets of grass are more prevalent, and those swampy areas can leave a man sinking up to his knees or higher. A thin braided waterway too swift to be a creek and too narrow to be a full river cuts directly north. Patches of gorse and brambles beg to catch someone with an armful of prickles. On the positive side, there isn't much that can fall out of the blue in the canyon unless they happen to lurk behind the random glacial erratics that Sir Agravaine apparently thinks are dragons.
*
Yeah, just when you think Agravaine is definitely 100% crazy…and HE MIGHT BE, that's when the dragons show up. The knight manages to get to the bottom, and draws his sword and holds his shield in front of him, trying to meet up with Gareth and Tywyll down there. "I AM the King." He declares. He might be staging a mini-coup.
*
Tywyll had just righted herself and let out a triumphant shout when the gate appeared. "Bloody he-" FWOOM! The world shifts and she lands… Directly in two feet of water. Spluttering and sopping wet the girl rises from the creek making all manner of racket as she straightens herself, looking upward. Then she takes a breath. Freezes in place. And screams at the top of her lungs. She's a 19-year-old girl, and healthy. It's a piercing shout that echoes rather clearly up the cliffside. "DRAAAAAGON!"
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 3
*
ROLL: Tigra +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 3
*
ROLL: Nyx +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 1
*
As the others start to get down to the bottom, one of them rather less than graceful, Gareth is taking a look around. Okay, well, small river. Mostly flat ground. Debris. Int-augh, ear-splitting yell! "Calm down!" he says. "It's just rocks! There's not a" No. He's learned. Don't tempt fate. "It's just rocks," he repeats. Though he does sniff at the air. Just in case.
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 2
*
You know, the creek will do. It will do so much more than breaking bones and bruising skin by rolling down the cliffside. The Master Bardd is sorry to see the Spymistress soggy, but…there's a ditty in there somewhere.
With a sigh that gusts down his sternum as he runs a hand down his face, he cranes his head to see where everyone is at this point.
And now someone's yelling. Agravaine? And there's Tywyll, screaming about…dragons?
"I should have stayed at Court," he mutters to himself, and casts a final Gate — this one for himself. A simple side-step, which probably looks unbelievably odd from the perspective of those below, but then he appears beside Sir Gareth, right as rain. "What are we yelling about? Rocks? Why are we yelling about rocks?" He arches an eyebrow at Lady Tywyll before flat-out glaring at Sir Agravaine. "And what are you doing?" He was too far up to hear clearly what the initial statement was about.
*
Is it just rocks? Does anyone want to wager on that?
Those boulders are more than a fair distance up the gulch. It's going to be quite the trudge up the swampy morass, with all the tripping and slogging that entails, to go see them up close.
*
Maximus just follows the lead of the pull of the sliver. He has another one, by the by, wrenched from the heart of some…ogre bramble thing. And he hasn't gotten his stolen. Neener. "What am I doing? /I/ am leading us into glorious conquest. There is a dragon, yonder, and when you fix your instrument and sing THAT song, of how Sr Agravaine destroyed the rock dragon of Westwick pass, then there will be no doubt of what armies shall follow me. I will…take back…" Agravaine frowns some. "We get the sliver…I can feel it beating like a heart, that way." He points with his sword.
*
Still cursing Tywyll is stalking along the creek in the direction of her dagon, grumbling. She doesn't have the shadows with her though those among the trees nearby quiver as she moves. There's too much raw daylight for them together near the soaked Spy Mistress, and perhaps she is too angry to entirely care. She does, however, seem to be looking around for… Something. The dragon, it must be. She doesn't respond to Taliesin.
*
Gareth listens to Agravaine/Maximus. One might almost think that Gareth wasn't the one who took the brain rattling fall. "There's no dragon," he repeats, raising his voice a bit as Tywyll stalks. Though he does smell something…odd. Again he sniffs, takes a few steps, sniffs again trying to see if he can zero in on it.
*
"I am not fixing my mandolin simply to sing a song of glory about you blunting the edge of your blade on some rock formation, Agravaine," the Master Bardd grumps even as he rolls his eyes. The actions of Lady Tywyll catch his attention and forestall any futher banter.
So do the actions of Sir Gareth, with that twitchy nose of his. Even Taliesin attempts to locate whatever the Knight has sussed out in the swampy air and frowns. "We need to get the artifacts back, like yonder canny bladesman mentioned earlier." Okay, he can't take it. "Lady Tywyll, you can't tell me that you think the rock formation is a dragon!" He strides her way, towards the rock formation inadvertantly.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d4 for a result of: 2
*
The long, slow slog is cold. It leaches into boots, it slips through pants, and leaves everyone damp and a bit dirty. The sun hides behind the silvery sky and gives no particular heat, leaving everyone squishy and wet. At least it isn't raining, thank all the powers that be.
It helps not one bit that approaching those glacial erratics shows there is no way around them except going in the river, flying into the sky, or climbing over. Not a fun prospect given they are rather smooth, shaped by long-vanished ice.
Words echo while they go, distorted and queer. The bard's insistence warrants a particularly odd vibration, and that would be about the moment the boulder spits open a stream of blackish vapor smelling oddly like, well, if winter sucked on a bottle of bourbon or wine. It smells cold. Especially when that boulder stretches out to stare flat at Sir Agravaine from a height of roughly nine feet, nephrite eyes full of an eerie witchfire light. Sure, there's no dragon.
Call it a wyrm and split the difference.
*
It is: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/59/f8/66/59f866423355582a50fd4383c18b1d52.jpg
*
Agravaine holds up his sword, and braces his shield in front of him, ready to take on this creature that he obviously knew was there. "Great wurm, reliquish your hold on this land and meet your better! I will take your head for my throne, or your obedience for my conquest! Defend yourself or beg for mercy, fiend! You and I were destined to meet. I have dreamed of this day, a great battle for a great city. You will know my blade, the snow leopard!" He shakes it threateningly, while maintaining a defensive stance.
*
"Let's not threaten it too much. It intends us no harm. Now shut up before you actually upset them." Tywyll straightens to her full height and takes a deep breath now. "I apologize for my friend! He's read too many tales about great battles against your kind. I am pretty sure you an understand us both. Have wee wandered into your territory by mistake?" She reaches up to pull stray blonde hairs back from her eyes. "My name is Tywyll. May I ask yours?"
*
Ahha, so that's what Gareth has been smelling. Well. He steps over towards Sir Agravaine. "Lower your sword, good knight. This may be someone we can speak to and with," he suggests, echoing Tywyll. "You'll still have your chance to show your greatness." Of course, if they're wrong, then he'll have a chance to show his greatness pretty soon.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 2
*
Claws slip back from the muck and the erratic boulder stretches out itself, no longer quite a lump but molded into living, sleek darkness absent of visible scales. Theirs is a pattern so fine and delicate they are nigh impossible to perceive. Spines lift at an oblique angle, stretched between long, spade-shaped membranes glistening a dark forest green, though each of those barbs is left pulsating a practically bioluminescent green. The dun underbelly helps the wyrm blend into the canyon surprisingly well. Though less so when reclining on its haunches, easily ten feet tall at the magnificent flattened coronet. Its leathery wings remain tucked to its sides. "You have come for conquest? Then you serve the queen."
It speaks Brythonic. It is a dragon of Britannia, after all. Those jet claws click, slipping from stone-like sheathes. Glimmering, slitted eyes track to Tywyll. "One is called Pretanikai by the mortals." Its tail curls and uncurls in serpentine patterns.
"Queen's men?" The question sparks from behind Gareth, and quite literally it sparks. Low, slinking like a cat, the source of the faintest traces of ozone and heat radiate into sight as the second wyrm prowls out from behind the boulders. "Strike or fly?"
Pretanikai is not willing to answer that as yet.
*
Agravaine frowns when Tywyll starts talking to it. Of course she is. He stops and looks behind him at the woman, then back to the dragon. He still stays defensive, just in case, but lets her talk.
*
Tywyll switches smoothly into Brythonic languages. Specifically Welsh or Breton, as the Wyrm prefers. I am here to seek out an artifact. We hope it will help us ri d the land of a spell that is raising the dead and choking the life from ifields. Do you know anything of such a thing, fair Pretanikai?
Tywyll akes a deep breath but her nerves are not betrayed utnil she looks back toward the people ehind her. That is when she worries her bottom lip and traces her fingers and toes agaisnt the ground. For the Wyrm? Pure confidence. A meetging between friends. Right?
*
Gareth stiffens at the sound from behind him, and then turns slowly to face the beast. "We serve the Queen," he confirms. "But we mean no harm against who do not wish us harm," he says. The slightly cat-like air about the second wyrm causes a small shift in his body language, his posture a little more languid, a hand resting on a hip.
*
"Of course we do." A whuff of smoldering cinders escapes the dark prowling wyrm's flaring nostrils. Its profile is long and low, trailing ragged heat shimmers behind it, making the distinction of where it ends and the landscape begins difficult.
The taller of the dragons tosses its plumed head. "None pursue that course. The Isle's heart was stolen, the lady tamed. Do you not know?" Pretanike flicks its tail.
The flaming one snaps its head to Sir Gareth, quicker than the tip of a bullwhip.
*
Yaaaaaaaaay, dragons. Well, not dragons, wyrms, but they're bigger, badder, and more scaley than anyone else here, so that doesn't negate much.
Taliesin chooses to stay still, at least, at first. Lady Tywyll does the talking — she does know the value of words, sometimes worth more than gold itself in certain situations. The others pipe in and still the Pencerdd remains unusually quiet. Still, if anyone takes a close enough look, they're see the gears whirring madly behind his eyes. There are machinations at hand.
It's a gambit. "Good Pretanikai, well-met." The Master Bardd inclines his head in a respectful nod to the plumed wrym; oh yes, he's aware of the firey one behind him, no worries. "We wish to retrieve the Isle's heart. I know of some of what has transpired, but please, I seek your further wisdom in the matter." Nothing like some flattering speech…?
*
Maximus keeps his defensive stance and nears to Gareth, just in case, because that one seems more threatening than feather-head. He lets the others talk, for now.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 4
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 6
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 19
*
"Well, what can we do but free the lady and bring back the Heart? The land is dying. Leaving it would be more than remiss of us." When the fiery dragon reacts to their being declared agents of the Queen Tywyll sighs heavily and then takes a deep breath. She shifts her weight from left to right before adding, "Anything you could tell us would be most welcome. I am sure you are as concerned as we are with the state of things recently. "Tywyll ventues a look back over her shoulder toward where Viviane's apparition had been.
*
A lady tamed. Might that be their own lady, the one who tried to shoo them off? "Could you tell us who the lady is that's been tamed?" Gareth asks either of the dragons who'd care to field the question.
*
Pretanikai is very much a dragon, what with the wings and legs. The stalking fire wyrm is slightly different in design, but no less impressive, and definitively winged.
Acidic green flashes trickle over Pretanikai's sinuous form as it continues to remain on its haunches, assessing the matter. "You know her seized? Did not she command you to cease these endeavours when he took her?" It tips its head in a slightly avian fashion, membranes sliding over glowing eyes and retracting again. "Mine doubts are great you will be sufficient to bring her to safety. Great forces mass against thine cause. Why should we bear you?"
The flame-beast continues to bristle, claws sinking into the ground. Waterlogged bracken is most definitely smoking, and Agravaine may find a familiar scent to his good dreams. "Nnnngffft. They do not even know the Heart who guides them? Humans."
"Again. Why should we carry you?" Pretanikai is rather more to the point.
*
Wait. Hold up one scaley, smokey second here. No one asked to be carried.
The Master Bardd is on this like an urchin on a sweetroll. His eyes narrow slightly towards Pretanikai even as he unconsciously stiffens for the nearing presence of the firey wrym still a little too close for comfort behind him. "Because…we have met every single challenge offered up to us and surmounted the odds to find ourselves here, before you. Because we are keen in tongue and blade alike, our will imdomitable as the day is long, and the Bright Lady knows our hearts to be true. Because we would have Her heart restored and return to that which we love dearest, even if it means sacrificing limb and life. Because none should suffer for the greed of one." His steely eyes glitter and his fists clutch at his sides.
*
Maximus makes a series of strange sounds under his helm. Like…gasping…whimpery…sounds. There's no real impetus, unless Taliesin's wordcraft is just so marvelous that it has moved him to tears.
*
Pretanikai swings its head around to stare long and hard at Sir Agravaine, and the faintest traces of black mist rise from its nostrils. "And you, knight? Is this true? Or do you mean to wave your sword and say I will decorate your throne?"
*
"Our Patroness saw fit to introduce herself as the Lady Vivianne," says Gareth. "Maiden, Mother, and…the Other One, clearly, but as she did not name herself, should we presume to believe that she moved openly?" Strange pretty much addresses his own thoughts as to why the dragons ought to help them.
*
The playful ribbons of the flowing streams get a little deeper, and then a great deal deeper. Liquid draws back from the water table and the marshy flanks, pushing heaps of mud in a definite wave that, with the conversation going on, may be rather hard to notice. That is, until the many minor tributaries of the river push into one braid, and that aqueous backbone swells up beneath Taliesin to hoist him a good seven feet in the air on a cresting churn. That or it hurls him off his feet to go flying into the exposed mucky bed.
"One of yours took the lady." The statements are short but not how fast the forming dragon speaks, solidifying and shaking its head slightly. Tendrils fall from its face in frozen whiskers, and its body gleams like a salamander's slick skin. "She told us to wait for you. Take you if you pursue her. Do you pursue her? You leave and we do not take you. Really quite simple if you ask me. You didn't, though."
*
The sound that escapes Taliesin is most definitely not a yelp. Nope, way too masculine…or musical…for that. Call it a cry of surprise. Airborne for the slightest second, he lands once more somewhere along the water dragon's backbone, clutching for dear life at the wispy strands of hair protruding up. Or maybe he doesn't get a good grip on anything, since the creature is semi-translucent and made of more liquid than solid matter.
"Ohhhhhh gods," he breaths, very much aware that he's smaller than the size of that mouth. "Yes, we pursue her!" He assumes he answers for all present.
*
"We have been drenched in mud, accosted by plants," Agravaine's voice sounds weird, "attacked by /water/, and a cliff, befuddled by /traps/ and more..traps, attacked by our own so-called-fellow-knights, accused of /sinning/, groped, grappled, and spat out, and I just wanted to slay ONE DRAGON, and make…everyone…finally really see me." Agravaine pauses. "And instead, you are nice dragons, and we need to ride you. WHY AM I A KNIGHT?! Its no good! Its basically…work, and…people try to attack you when you come into their house for your rightful entitlement to their harvest. AND I NEVER GET WHAT I WANT!"
*
"Yes, we pursue her. We've pushed ourselves to the limits of what body and mind can endure," Gareth says. "All to do her will, and to restore the proper balance between light and dark." He steps over to Agravaine and tries to put an arm around his shoulders. "Pushed beyond the limits, in some cases." There, there.
*
Therapy, who knew they would be asked to do that? "Slay an evil man who stole a good woman instead." Pretanikai drops its head down until nearly eye to eye with Agravaine, though that could be concerning. And the fact Taliesin literally just got tossed in the air by a once friendly creek, also mildly alarming. Or perhaps this helps. "What do you truly want, man?"
Lady Tywyll's silence is uncharacteristic, maybe because the shimmering bend of the air around her is a little too hypnotic.
The flame-wyrm, hunkered low, snorts out a noise. It stretches out its neck and then deigns to open its wings, flapping them lazily, the backdrafts aimed at the wall of the gorge rather than at the knights. Important, that, since its span is enormous. "You climb or I put you on my back," it tells Gareth. "You choose." Why is there a toothy grin? There is a toothy grin.
*
"Oh, you should be steadier. You wear no metal. But you flop about like a fish!" Albion, the creek turned into a wyrm, gathers its serpentine coils under Taliesin. It would help if the dragon did not keep undulating and spiralling, but that seems to constitute how it prefers to move. Solidified, it takes on greater opacity. "Hold on. Yes, yes, to anything. Not the scales, though. Pretanikai is likely to bite you pulling on her head. Up, up! Off you all go. Have you never been riding?" It gives a flick of its tail and surges off down the valley as fast as a stream can. Which is, to be fair, pretty damned fast.
*
And pretty damned fast means a pretty damn rapidly-disappearing yelp from the Master Bardd!
Manly yelp, he swears.
*
"You'll never knooooow." Agravaine answers to the dragon, his voice echoey inside his helm. And he will, of course, mount up, either on the same one as Gareth, or a different one. Briefly does he give Sir Gareth a locker-room pat on the chainmail ass as thanks for…being a bro in his moment of madness.
*
Gareth braces himself instinctively when the wings open and flap, and then steadies himself. He gives Agravaine's shoulder a quick shake of reassurance, and then faces the flame-wyrm. "I'll climb, thank you, very much. I'd rather not be picked up like a kitten." And with that he'll mount up as best he can.
*
Maximus gets on his peacock dragon when Gareth's dragon clearly only seats one!